"If Need Be, Stand Alone."
By Editor
RIGHT and wrong are not matters of majorities. Right is right whether it have one adherent or a thousand. It is right to stand with the right whether we stand with the mass or stand alone. It is a sad thing to see the sentiment sweeping in among the men of America that to stand for the right they must stand en masse. Just recently a number of students in a great university denounced with a deal of perfervid oratory certain actions by the faculty as wrong, and declared that the only right thing to do was to leave the school with certain suspended students; but to do this they wanted two hundred and fifty men! That is, if a quarter of a thousand men would stand for the right the individuals will stand with them; but if they could not get that number, what is the use? They did not get the number, and the eloquent orations over "rights" and "right" and "manliness," etc., are but memories of ghosts that were. Now if the course advocated for the two hundred and fifty were right, it was right for each one of the two hundred and fifty. Why were not the advocates of the plan willing to sacrifice themselves, if need be, for the principle? If they had possessed this spirit, doubtless their oratory would have had more effect. Thus far the illustration. It is the principle and the lesson of the principle we wish to place before our readers. These are days of mad activity. Principle and policy seem to be deplorably and confusedly mixed. Policy in a thousand forms is bidding for men. Astounding prices are offered for the barter of conscience. Great personalities and mighty masses of men are standing for policies which are crushing ruthlessly principles of right and equity and justice and truth. People are swayed by success, or hoped-for success, and by numbers. Great, simple, moral principles are forgotten, forgotten with the awful fact that there is a coming judgment bar before which every soul must give account, not for the men or the multitude he has followed, but for himself. We are living in the prophetic "valley of decision," packed with the teeming multitudes of earth, garish with flaunting worldly policies, tense with struggling energies of opposing forces. What shall we do? —Weigh the great questions before us not in the scales of moving multitudes or jubilant masses, not under the influences of great rulers or personalities, nor swayed by eloquent oratory or glittering generalities; but weigh the questions in the balances of God's sanctuary, and decide them in the light of His judgment. Hold to the right; do the right; live for the right, tho in it all you stand alone. Do not make a mad charge against the forces of evil, and go down in the conflict. That were foolish. God wants calm, deliberate decision, then wise, energetic action. Stand for the truth, stand for the right, tho all the hosts of earth and hell oppose. Always remember that you are not alone; Jehovah of hosts stands with all the sons of principle and right and truth and honor; and He is a majority. You may go down, but better to go down with Him than to win with the devil. On the other side of Satan's victory is death. On the thither side of Truth's seeming defeat is life forevermore.